While Democrats Fundraise Off Keystone Delay, Americans Lay 10,000 Miles of Pipeline

Forbes ^ | 4/30/2014 | Chris Prandoni

[thackney]

On Good Friday the White House announced the administration was indefinitely delaying a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the construction project that will bring crude oil from Alberta, Canada to American refiners in Oklahoma and Texas. It has been more than 2000 days since TransCanada TRP -0.41% first submitted its paperwork to build Keystone. Since then, America has laid 10,000 miles of pipeline, over 4,000 miles of which transport crude oil.

While this number may seem shocking given the hyperbolic debate surrounding Keystone, America is literally covered in pipelines. 185,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipelines and 320,000 miles of natural gas transmission and gathering pipelines transport essential resources from production sites, to refiners or processing plants, to market. With the likelihood of successfully shipping crude oil or petroleum products via pipeline at 99.999 percent, that’s a good thing.

The U.S. Department of Transportation collects and produces data on incident and injury rates during transportation of petroleum products via oil and gas pipelines, road, and rail. Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute controls for reporting differences between transportation mediums and shows that “road and rail have higher rates of serious incidents and injuries than pipelines, even though more road and rail incidents go unreported.” Furchtgott-Roth produced the below table to clearly illustrate this point.

In the State Department’s most recent, and hopefully final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), they rightly conclude that killing the Keystone Pipeline will not affect the development of Canada’s oil sands, “[A]pproval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the proposed Project, remains unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands, or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the U.S.”

For rail transportation costs to be prohibitive, oil prices would have to plummet.

[thackney]

[Vinnie]

The latest incident in Virginia should tell the environmentalists and Zer0 something about safe transportation of oil/gas.
But.. their goal is to do away with fossil fuels altogether isn’t it?

[Buckeye McFrog]

Americans Lay 10,000 Miles of Pipeline

Saw that in my listings on Cinemax at 2 AM.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I once saw a map of oil and gasoline pipelines, and they criss cross the country. There are already so many pipelines, which operate safely. Yet the liberals decided to become fixated on this one particular project.

[thackney]

[Praxeologue]

The reason this Grover Norquist (i.e. Saudi pawn) employee gives for Keystone opposition is "politics and money", epitomized, in his view, by Tom Steyer. Taking him at face value, why do people like Steyer stake their personal fortunes on opposing a project that reduces environmental and accident risk and actually lowers greenhouse gas emissions, as if that mattered, of course. Why are they obsessed about one source of crude, while the U.S. has unlimited alternate sources and hundreds of thousands of miles of crude pipelines? It's not that petroleum is nonrenewable, since we have a century of supply. It's not a luddite view, since petroleum has been providing our energy needs for a century with a massive infrastructure to match.

The reason is force of habit. The left has whipped themselves into frenzy on the topic and staked its reputation on opposition, the same way they have with the global warming scare. Their myopia will last on automatic pilot for years to come as the refuse to adnmit they are wrong. The Saudis egg them on out of self-interest.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Thank you. Look at how many pipelines already are in place. Yet we’re told that the Keystone pipeline would be so dangerous to the environment, dangerous to animals, dangerous to farming, etc.

[thackney]

While any movement of hazardous material, like crude oil, has risk, pipelines are very safe.

There have been some large pipeline ruptures in remote areas that were not discovered quickly. That skews the average to look worse than most pipelines will ever experience in their lifetime.

Pipelines are not perfect, but they are better than all the other choices when available, in my opinion. It is certainly less costly and more energy efficient.

[Mears]

No more trains IMHO. This did it for me. Horrifying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_derailment

.

[thackney]

There will always be some moved on trains, but the amount is climbing due to the ignorance of others.

[Dilbert San Diego]

But then, the liberals are also against transporting oil on tanker cars in trains. I know they want us to get away from fossil fuels altogether, but, they are unrealistic in that view. So, then, you have to consider whether we should transport oil in trains or trucks, vs. a pipeline. Realistically speaking anyway, that’s the choice.